MAMBARI TRADERS. 293 



montanus, though the country is perfectly flat, and was finely 

 marked down to the feet, as all the zebras are in these parts. 



To our first message, offering a visit of explanation to Ma- 

 nenko, we got an answer, with a basket of manioc roots, that 

 we must remain where we were till she should visit us. Having 

 waited two days already for her, other messengers arrived with 

 orders for me to come to her. After four days of rains and 

 negotiation, I declined going at all, and proceeded up the river 

 to the small stream Makondo (lat. 13° 23' 12" S.), which enters 

 the Leeba from the east, and is between twenty and thirty yards 

 broad. 



January 1st, 1854. We had heavy rains almost every day ; in- 

 deed, the rainy season had fairly set in. Baskets of the purple fruit 

 called mawa were frequently brought to us by the villagers ; not 

 for sale, but from a belief that their chiefs would be pleased to 

 hear that they had treated us well ; we gave them pieces of meat 

 in return. 



When crossing at the confluence of the Leeba and Makondo, 

 one of my men picked up a bit of a steel watch-chain of English 

 manufacture, and we were informed that this was the spot where 

 the Mambari cross in coming to Masiko. Their visits explain 

 why Sekelenke kept his tusks so carefully. These Mambari are 

 very enterprising merchants : when they mean to trade with a 

 town, they deliberately begin the affair by building huts, as if 

 they knew that little business could be transacted without a lib- 

 eral allowance of time for palaver. They bring Manchester goods 

 into the heart of Africa ; these cotton prints look so wonderful 

 that the Makololo could not believe them to be the work of mor- 

 tal hands. On questioning the Mambari they were answered that 

 English manufactures came out of the sea, and beads were gath- 

 ered on its shore. To Africans our cotton mills are fairy dreams. 

 "How can the irons spin, weave, and print so beautifully?" Our 

 country is like what Taprobane was to our ancestors — a strange 

 realm of light, whence came the diamond, muslin, and peacocks ; 

 an attempt at explanation of our manufactures usually elicits the 

 expression, " Truly ye are gods I" 



When about to leave the Makondo, one of my men had dreamed 

 that Mosantu was shut up a prisoner in a stockade : this dream 

 depressed the spirits of the whole party, and when I came out of 



